farm
In a strange sense, I feel like I'm preparing for something. I spend a lot of time alone, very little social interaction - isolated from the constant deluge of stimulation and media saturation. I'm left alone in my thoughts, in my being.
And I do it to myself
Read MoreSo it was one of those days, the thought process just goes into overdrive and begins to cloud any reasoning and logic. The past comes up, the future comes up, all of the baggage surrounding both start to rear their nosy and intrusive little lizard heads. Sometimes this would last for hours, then days, then weeks, but more and more you begin to see that there's a way out…well, at least temporarily.
You recognize it.
You realize it.
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Just another small reminder that patience, adaptation, and going-with-the-flow can pay off. Finished a gig yesterday and turned to get on the freeway to get home. It was packed. Nothing but an endless sea of red brake lights. My only other option was to add an extra 15 miles to my trip by driving through the hills on a side road that runs parallel to the freeway. So I said screw it…that's what I'm doing. Would rather look at the hills than a million other cars on the 101. Not only that, but the sun was getting ready to drop behind the mountains…and that's enough to turn on any photographer.
So there I go, drove past the freeway entrance and into the hills. As soon as I was out of sight of the freeway madness, the initial frustration of adding time and distance to my drive home melted away…immediately! And when I say immediately, I mean IMMEDIATELY - I went from frustrated and tense, to calm and relaxed in significantly less than an instant. Told myself that I had to somehow document the day and moment with an image to remind me of that mental transformation and how powerful a simple trigger can be to the mind.
So with that...this is what I found just as the sun was getting ready to drop behind the hill. I know it's nothing special, and hell, I don't know what Fox Creek Farms even does, but the lighting, the fence, and the situation made it seductively charming to me. And taking that picture made me smile. And standing outside in that sunlight made me smile. And quite honestly, that's what this photography thing is to me - a reliable impetus to get in a good headspace, no matter what's going on outside that viewfinder. Sometimes it's the process, and not the image, that's important.
Plus, sure as hell beats sitting in traffic.
A few recent gradual revelations are telling me that perhaps part of me feels like I'm coming into my own in a lot of respects as far as photography is concerned. And I suppose it's really just a matter of perspective and paying attention rather than just letting life happen and allowing the monotony to take charge of the psyche. Day in and day out I'm editing photos robotically for a website, and many of the photos are photos I'd never think to take myself - small, close-up details, seemingly devoid of context.
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Sometimes you just have to do it. The head won't stop and you need to get outside of it to regain your sanity. Last Friday was one of those days. So like most times, a good personal photo session was in order. I hopped in my car, and drove up the coast, out of Los Angeles, through Santa Barbara, over the hills, and into the Santa Ynez Valley.
Oaks, rolling hills, vineyards, and more oaks, rolling hills, and vineyards. One of my favorite spots on the planet.
It was a bit cathartic in the sense that I've spent a lot of time up in that area, and therefore I have many memories from that area, and many of them are a bit hard to deal with…so figured perhaps I'll try to replace those ones with newer ones…and it worked. Helped remind me why photography has become such an important and essential piece of my life's puzzle. No matter what's going on 'up there,' it's that viewfinder that helps you remember and appreciate what's 'out there'…
I won't say much here, I'll just sort of let some of the photos (hopefully) do the talking.
I almost didn't do it, but I'm sooooo glad I did. So every now and then, I shoot photos for Airbnb.com, the vacation rental website where people can rent out their unused spaces for extra income. Sometimes it's a guest house, sometimes it's a room in a house, sometimes it's a tent on a roof of a house. Luckily, since I'm in Topanga Canyon, my radius of 30 miles for assignments covers some of the most ridiculous places ever. I live in a 600 square foot shack of a house, but the hills around me are surrounded by Malibu, Pacific Palisades, that sort of thing...so you don't have to work your imagination too hard to understand what exists in these parts.
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